Samsung and Sanyo Battle to Make Thinnest Cell Phone

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has laid claim to the title with the unveiling of a new handset that is 9.8 millimeters thick — just 0.1 millimeters thinner than a handset from Japan’s Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd.

The SPH-N2000 handset is not just thin but small as well. It measures 111 millimeters by 44 millimeters which makes it shorter and slightly wider than Sanyo’s handset, the C405SA produced for Japanese carrier KDDI Corp., which measures 129 millimeters by 39 millimeters. In terms of weight, Sanyo has the edge. Its phone weighs 62 grams against Samsung’s 74 grams.

Both telephones use four-tone monochrome displays, something not unusual in most markets, including South Korea, but unusual in Japan, where most telephones are now equipped with color LCD panels. They are designed to work on CDMA (code division multiple access) telephone networks and include browsers for mobile Internet services.

Samsung say other features of its new handset include an upgraded short message service function, animation character selection, simple emoticons and a memory that can store up to 1,000 telephone numbers. Sanyo’s handset features a 16-chord ringer and built-in shoot-em-up game.